Violent gun crime increased in 2005 amid overall drop

ASSOCIATED PRESS

Americans were robbed and victimized by gun violence at greater rates last year than the year before, even though overall violent and property crime reached a 32-year low, the Justice Department said yesterday.

Analysts said these increases buttress reports from the FBI and many mayors and police chiefs that violent crime is beginning to rise after a long decline. Bush administration officials expressed concern but stressed that it was too soon to tell whether an upward trend in violence had begun.

Last year, there were two violent gun crimes for every 1,000 people, compared with 1.4 in 2004, according to the department’s Bureau of Justice Statistics. There were 2.6 robberies for every 1,000 persons, compared with 2.1 the year before.

“This report tells us more the serious events — robbery and gun crimes — increased, and the FBI already told us homicides increased,” said James Alan Fox, a professor of criminal justice at Northeastern University in Boston.

“So while the report shows the more numerous but least serious violence — simple assaults, which is pushing and shoving — went down, the mix got worse in terms of severity. That wasn’t a very good trade-off,” Mr. Fox said.

A preliminary FBI report in June on crimes reported to police showed a 4.8 percent increase in the number of homicides and 4.5 percent increase in the number of robberies last year.

Alfred Blumstein, a professor at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, said the rise in gun violence was particularly troubling.

“A major police effort to confiscate guns helped bring down the surge in violent crime that occurred in the late 1980s and early 1990s,” Mr. Blumstein said. “But gun distribution is easier now because we have begun to back off gun control.”

The statistics bureau’s victimization report found that the overall violent-crime rate was unchanged last year from 2004, at just more than 21 crimes for every 1,000 persons older than 12.

The property-crime rate fell last year from 161 crimes to 154 for every 1,000 people because of a drop in household thefts. Both rates were the lowest since the survey began in 1973.

Deputy Attorney General Paul J. McNulty noted the record-low rates but said the government is “are concerned about” the increase in the violent firearm crime rate.

“Whether the increase … marks a change in the trend toward reduced firearms victimization rates cannot be determined from one year’s data,” he said.

He said some cities are seeing violent-crime increases and noted that the department has several programs in which federal agents join state and local officers to combat gangs and drug abuse.

Unlike the FBI report culled from police blotters, the statistics bureau makes estimates based on interviews with 134,000 people, so it counts not only reported crime but also crimes the police never hear about.